Sasha Alexandra
Waltz (born 8 March 1963, Karlsruhe) is a German choreographer, dancer and
leader of the dance company Sasha Waltz and Guests.

Waltz is the daughter of
an architect and a curator. At five years old she had her first dance lesson in
Karlsruhe with Waltraud Kornhass, a student of Mary Wigman. From 1983 until
1986, Waltz studied at the School For New Dance Development in Amsterdam.

Between 1986 and 1987 she
did further training in New York. During that period she was a dancer for Pooh
Kaye, Yoshiko Chuma & School of Hard Knocks and Lisa Kraus. After that she
collaborated intensely with choreographers, visual artists and musicians such as
Tristan Honsinger, Frans Poelstra, Mark Tompkins, David Zambrano.

From 1992 onwards she was
artist in residence in Kunstlerhaus Bethanien. There she developed a series of
"dialogues" in interdisciplinary projects with dancers, musicians and visual
artists (Nasser Martin-Gousset, Takako Suzuki, Charlotte Zerbey, Akos Hargitai).
A year later in 1993, she founded her company "Sasha Waltz and Guests" with
Jochen Sandig. Over the next 3 years they developed the
Travelogue-Trilogy.

Together with Jochen
Sandig, they founded the Sophiensæle in central Berlin, as a center for the
development of free theatre and dance. Here they developed Allee der
Kosmonauten (1996), Zweiland (1997) and Na Zemlje (1998), as
well as the project Dialoge `99/I.

In 1999 she took over as
Artistic Director at Schaubuhne am Lehniner Platz in Berlin alongside Thomas
Ostermeier, Jens Hillje and Jochen Sandig. She opened the Schaubuhne under new
direction with the debut of Korper (2000). This was followed by S
(2000), noBody (2002), insideout (2003) , Impromptus (2004)
and Gezeiten (2005).

Once her 5 year period
with the Schaubuhne finished she reactivitated Sasha Waltz & Guests as an
independent company again, with a base in Berlin. It was established as an
international project with 25 permanent and 40 associate collaborators.